Facebook has 296 million monthly active users

Facebook quarterly results beat estimates, shows exponential growth in revenue and number of users.

The most popular social network, Facebook, has had a substantial increase in its mobile user base and posted a 39 percent increase over the year-ago quarter with nearly 945 million monthly active users on mobile. Facebook reported that 296 million monthly active users accessed the network from their mobile devices only. 

It has posted 2.6 billion revenue in its last quarter, an increase of nearly 63% from last year. The company reported a profit of $780 million on earnings of 31 cents per share.

in 2013, Facebook had revenues of $7.87bn, an increase of 55% year-over-year and made a profit of $1.5bn. The social networking giant says it had 1.23 billion monthly active users in December last year.

The company’s advertising revenue grew nearly 76 percent year-over-year to $2.34 billion with mobile ad revenue making up 53 percent of that amount. The increase in revenue was contributed to the company's new high-priced, auto-playing video advertisements which were launched in mid-December. According to Facebook's quarterly report, US and Canada continue to make up the largest geographic segment of the company’s revenue.

"It was a great end to the year for Facebook," said Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO said in a press release. "We're looking forward to our next decade and to helping connect the rest of the world." Zuckerberg noted Facebook’s anniversary next week when the social networking site turns 10. “It’s been an amazing journey so far but what’s ahead is even more exciting,” he said.

The results come a week after a controversial Princeton University study claimed the social networking giant will lose 80% of its users by 2015. Facebook called the conclusion “crazy” in a blog post.